Guide on How to Find Dropshipping Niche Ideas

If you're interested in a dropshipping business, the first task is finding some focused specialization to make profitable and sustainable business.

To obtain business success, it is important not only to correctly determine the market for yourself but also to find its very narrow area that hasn't been occupied yet or insufficiently used by competitors. The purpose of choosing a niche market is starting the game on the field and then use the advantages that this field gives to a player.

Criteria for Best Dropshipping Niches

In this very part I'm going to tell about characteristics of the best niches or what niche should (and should not) be:

Specialized

This is the idea of a niche market as I've mentioned before. Your niche should include products that appeal to a specific group of people but not to the masses. Here is an example:

"Home textile" is a product category and it'is not specialized. If we narrow this category, we'll have "Pillows" which is a subcategory. It's not specialized too.

If we go deeper, we reach "Travel pillows", "Pregnancy pillows" or "Baby pillows". All these three groups of products are the examples of niche products as they are specialized.

Travel pillow

Pregnancy pillow

Baby pillow

Topical

Your offer should be under demand to get orders in the end. It's preferable not to choose a seasonable or time-sensitive niche.

How to check if a niche is topical? A popular instrument for checking if your niche is topical or not is Google Trends. The information that Google Trends have is "based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages" Wikipedia says.

Input your niche idea and look at the trend:

Left

Right

It should be with clearly defined target audience

You need to know who your audience is: its gender, age, location, interests, where to reach it. This information is necessary for your advertising campaign. If we're saying about "Baby pillows", Facebook targeting parameters may be the following:

I don't think this point should be explained, let's move to the next one.

Easy for shipping

The items of your niche should not be fragile. They should not be oversized or overweight too. ePacket is the most popular shipping method that dropshippers use to ship goods from China as it's low-cost and relatively fast. This shipping method has some limits on package size and weight, learn about restrictions.

The products should not need special permissions or certifications.

White label brand

If you sell branded products which are knock-offs, you run the risk of copyright/trademark infringement. The situation is different when you buy the items from an authorized dealer. You may find dropshipping stores that sell Harry Potter, The Simpsons, or else themed products. Remember, someone may get away with it but it's always a risk.

There should be competition

This may sound controversial as many people say "a dropshipping niche should be unique". However, if someone makes money, this is what you need. If you find a niche that no one else has, it means there is no competition. I doubt you can make money. Competition is normal. On the other hand, it's not recommended to choose a niche that is oversaturated.

You should have interest in it

This point is not obligatory but running business is not only about money. It's preferable to have a niche that interests you. So, what you're interested in?

The Best Dropshipping Niche: Steps to Go

Here I'll tell what exactly steps should be taken to find the best niche and reach your goal. So, here are the steps to go:

Choose a category - think about category you like the most and narrow it

Find passion and check audience size - go to Facebook targeting to see a number of people who like this

As for passion, it's great to offer something to people that have passion about it. They will be glad to part with money and will do it with joy. The examples of niches which concern passion are gamer, coffee, hiking, unicorn, skull, fishing, cooking.

Remember to narrow a category till a focused specialization. In this case, you will have a niche store.

Visit Facebook targeting as it will help you to find out both an audience size and if there is any passion within a niche that people follow.

Dropshipping Niche Finders

"How to find a niche product" or "where to find niche ideas" are popular questions. The following websites may be used as instruments for niche search:

Visit also the Niche Business Ideas where you will find (1) profitable niche ideas, (2) ready Facebook targeting parameters for each niche, and (3) nine best-selling niche products for each niche.

Read the resource called What to Sell. It contains 20+ articles with profitable and trending dropshipping ideas for your product research.

Shopify General Store or Niche Store?

Some people ask about the difference between a niche store and a general one. No doubt both of them have pros and cons.

Why niche: Two main reasons to choose a niche store: (1) it's targeted to find people with correspondent interests, (2) easy for upselling.

There is one minus of all the niche stores, if the niche doesn't give you profit, it's necessary to change it completely.

Why general: The key reason to launch a general store is (1) testing different niches at once to further build a niche store that brings profit.

So, stay broad or specific? It's up to you to decide.

How Many Items to Add to a Brand New Store?

Some people ask this question when they just start. The answer is it's not important, as you will be adding more items to your dropshipping store while testing. If you still need to get an idea, from 5 to 30 items are OK as the first step. It's ideal if there are about 10 products that attract an audience and the rest 20 additional items are added for upselling.

Don't waste time and don't overthink. You may switch your niche any time, that's normal.